Year Plans 2024: What I've Missed

Last year, I made a list like this, going over all the games I had planned to cover during the year but didn’t; that meant playing roughly an hour of each of them, and collecting my “first impressions” (by default of not having enough time to play through their entirety, like I try to for regular reviews) into a single article.

I thought I had done poorly this year, but no – when compared to 2023, where I had 14 games I hadn’t played through, this time around I have 17, which… yeah, it’s more, but it’s not that much more. It’s unfortunate that I couldn’t hit my goals, but then again – I did overshoot while setting up my Year Plans. I won’t explain my method in depth, but it’s more than just “roll for a random number”. As usual, I’ll be setting this up in time for my retrospective, next week.

One thing I noticed when going back over the titles I didn’t play this year: I had a lot of RPGs in there. When I was picking these games, I also stumbled on a few two-game franchises and put the whole franchise in there to make it simple. So yeah, I had a lot of stuff to check out. Opening with…

The variety

Wait till they toss in bugs! And fire! And MORE!

Starting with a funny puzzle game (that I had almost forgotten about!), Girls Like Robots is a creation of Popcannibal. In this game from 2014, we seat girls, robots, nerds and various other characters (with the loadout changing at every chapter) to reach as much happiness as possible. Girls love to sit next to robots, but a robot cannot stand being surrounded by four girls. Nerds like edges, corners, and robots, but girls don’t like them. Girls and nerds like pie, but robots don’t! New requests, character interactions, and rules get added regularly to shake things up. It’s fun, and gets surprisingly tricky even an hour in.

Paper Mario (Part 5)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Let’s storm this castle!

Chapter 8: A Star-Powered Showdown! (Continued)

Past the room with the possible encounter with three Anti Guys, we face more puzzles and enemies. Dry Bones, Koopatrols, and of course the Magikoopas, who become more common. This dungeon has already been pretty long overall, so the final segments start to feel rather samey. This ends with an encounter with a third Bowser door, one that forces Mario to battle a team of enemies he hasn’t seen in a while: The Koopa Bros.!

How the Heck did you get up here? ...IN SPACE?

With such a talent to adapt and improve, Jr.
Troopa could be a fantastic ally. Yet, "Nope;
Gonna be a bully and antagonize a hero."

But wait, what’s that? They get quickly whacked away? Yep. They’re defeated by none other than Little Shit, who decided he wanted a final battle. In this one, the eggshelled Koopa will switch between his various forms, forcing Mario and Co. to adapt to the situation. He still winds up being fairly weak, seeing as by this point you likely have a counter for every form he’ll take and every attack he’ll use. The fight winds up being a tad disappointing. Then again, seems like it worked and this little bully learned his lesson, ‘cause we never saw him in a Mario game again.

Pah! Good riddance!

Past that door is the top of Bowser’s Castle. And, on it, Peach’s Castle. The next couple screens are nothing more than Mario wandering the empty halls towards the higher floors. You can even find some helpful items outside and inside her castle.

Won't be the last time that Peach's Castle,
of all places, serves as the theater of the
final confrontation.

Paper Mario (Part 4)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

This adventure isn’t quite concluding just yet, so we have time for another aside.

What To Do In The Mushroom Kingdom: A Tourist’s Video Guide, Pt. 2

*Tape resumes* …You’re still here? What the ever-flying dickens are you doing here visiting the kingdom while Bowser has the Star Rod and has eliminated everyone’s wishes and everybody’s feeling down and- I’m fine. I swear! I’m fine. Perfectly fine. So, you may be wondering what else there is to do in our great, beautiful Kingdom. Well, I have some answers!

Yum!

Tayce T.’s Gastronomy Stop: When everything seems bleak, a nice meal will raise your spirits! That’s the specialty of Tayce T., a wonderful grandma Toad who can whip up something nice out of, well, almost everything you can find on your travels. She can cook with only one “ingredient” per se at first, and will usually give back better items as a result. Bring a mushroom that restores 5 HP, and get in return a friend shroom that restores 6 HP as well as 2 FP! Whatever that's supposed to mean... Once she retrieves that cookbook that she seems to lose all the time, she can make even better recipes with two items instead of one, leading to even better healing items for your journey. Worst case scenario, you bring up incompatible items and you’ll receive a Mistake, which can be sold for money! Tayce T. is the best. Too bad she can’t cook something to insta-whoop Bowser’s spiky bum. But, speaking of our lovely elders…

Oh great, what is he gonna ask for this time...

Helping the elderly: When the Mushroom Kingdom isn’t in grave danger (so, roughly three days out of every month), people like to help each other. You could lend a hand, too! One of our most enduring elders, Koopa Koot down at Koopa Village, always needs aid with something. Go by! We’re seriously sick of dealing with the guy. He always has some requests to make, to the point where you’ve gotta wonder if he’s not trying to abuse of everyone’s niceness. He also pays like a miser… well, sometimes he hands out Star Pieces, so there’s that. Also, he keeps losing everything. It’s time we put that old windbag in the retirement home. Other than that, you can also…

Paper Mario (Part 3)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Now that we’re technically halfway into the adventure, with far more to discuss, I figured it was time to do an aside.

What To Do In The Mushroom Kingdom: A Tourist’s Video Guide, Pt. 1

Heeey~ so it’s your first time visiting the Kingdom? No? But it just doesn’t feel the same? I getcha. Our landmass changes a lot every couple years, even the Toads keep getting lost. Places disappear, new ones appear. This guide’s gonna be outdated by the next Mario game. But since you’re here now, visiting, I figured you’d like to know some of the stuff you can find currently, and what sort of fun you can get up to. Oh, just ignore the giant clown car in the sky with two castles stacked on top like a bad wedding cake, it’s no biggie.

One of those shops has a rather... uh...
aggressive marketing campaign.

Badges: What would be a tourism visit without some badges that say “Hey, I’ve been there!”? Well, fear not, we’ve got you covered. Across the land you can find a wide, wide variety of badges (our most recent number says 80) to equip to yourself. Some will add a jingle to your actions, changing the normal FX you’d get from doing something. Several of them will also greatly help you out if you want to see more of the Kingdom, as it can be a pretty dangerous place at times! Like now...

You will find most of these in the wild, but they’re also sold in at least two shops: One in Toad Town, the other on the upper floor of the fortune teller Merluvlee’s place near Shooting Star Summit. That one uses a special currency called Star Pieces, I’ll get back to that in a moment. We’ve yet to think of something to give to a daring soul that somehow finds all the existing badges, so “catching them all” isn’t necessary – but the more you have, the more options you’ve got to brave the wilderness!

These? Oh, that's just the ones pinned to my
red shirt. I got 50 more in the collection.

Paper Mario (Part 2)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

Continuing from Part 1, we’re about to jump into…

Chapter 2: The Mystery of Dry, Dry Ruins

Hey, it's Mario who does the stomping here!

Mario returns to Toad Town, now accompanied by Goombario, Kooper and Bombette. You know, I’ve always seen parties of characters in turn-based combat RPGs as teams that would probably be awesome to watch in situations where they’re not bound by turn-based mechanics. With Mario as the leader, and everyone contributing their abilities, they could be an unstoppable team of heroes! Alas, that’s not how it works.

Oh yeah, and on the way back, they encounter Jr. Troopa again. The little shit has learned a new skill, where he becomes impervious to some attacks by hiding in his shell. Ah, I hate that kid. I vote to nickname him Little Shit for the remainder of the review. Anyone opposes the motion? No? That’s settled. He IS a nasty little bully, I consider the nickname appropriate.

Alright, time to gear up before we go out to
find our next Spirit.

Paper Mario (Part 1)

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5

This one had been a long time coming, waiting in my Wii’s memory. Well, now is the day. Anniversary review!

The Mario franchise has had an interesting history with RPGs. The first was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars, co-created by Square-Enix, famous for the Final Fantasy series. There were plans for a sequel with the same collaboration, only for much of it to split when the new RPG took a decidedly different direction. Plans up to that point were changed heavily to appeal more to younger players, with a cute art style and tweaks to the game’s system and its overall difficulty, while also containing enough options for more experienced players. After all, they know about timed hits.

Also, only in a Square-Enix game
would you see this sort of enemy.

And what a world! It's gonna be all
different by the next game.

And so, Paper Mario was born, a world of paper and cardboard and crafts that became the world of multiple RPGs. The first two are pretty straightforward (but paper-based mechanics didn’t really make an appearance until the sequel, The Thousand-Year Door). The next ones experimented a lot. I already covered Super Paper Mario on this blog. I’ve yet to play any of the others (Sticker Star, Color Splash and Origami King).

Even then, the peculiar system of Paper Mario helps it feel different from everything else that’s out there in the genre. Instead of controlling an entire party, it’s Mario + one party member. XP is replaced by a system of Star Points. Instead of being able to equip all sorts of armor and weapons, Mario can choose among various Badges he finds in the world, with greater upgrades coming with the plot. All of these will be discussed in greater detail in due time.

How about we cover this game’s story so I can discuss some of its details?

Intro

Bowser. Big, bad brute. Can instantly master
the Star Rod.

The intro before the title screen explains the mythos of this game: Up in a place called Star Haven lives a race of Star people who have the ability to grant wishes, in great part thanks to the Star Rod, an artefact made with ancient magic and used by the seven Star Spirits. Unfortunately for them, one day, Bowser, his second-in-command Kammy Koopa, and their forces break in, steal the Rod, and capture the Spirits into cards.

The game starts as Mario and Luigi receive a letter from Princess Peach inviting them to a party at her castle. They go, and Mario heads directly towards Peach’s quarters. She is, of course overjoyed at seeing her hero! However, the earth shakes suddenly and both feel themselves being risen. To their shock, Bowser’s Castle sprouts out of the ground underneath Peach’s Castle, itself on top of a giant Koopa Clown Car, and all are brought into space.

I heard you like castles so I put a castle
under your castle.

To this day, I still have no idea how or why Bowser's Castle was underneath Peach's Castle, with that Clown Car beneath all that for good measure. You can go "Star Rod, reality warping, whatever" but even there, it feels too crazy to be possible. There's no way that could have possibly been there. So... portal? Magic is the only explanation I can see.

Damage result: 0. Yeah... we're not able to
hurt Bowser when he's powered up.

Bowser shows up to kidnap the Princess and Mario valiantly defends her, but shortly into their fight Bowser reveals the Star Rod. Bowser wishes to become invincible, and through the rod’s power, it happens. Bowser subsequently outmatches Mario and knocks him out, then tosses him out the window.

You know we’re in for a Hell of a ride when an RPG starts with the bad guy winning, especially someone with such a poor win/loss record like Bowser.

Prologue

Looks like there are some advantages to
wearing such an iconic style.

If nobody's blocking the path, I should
get there easily.

Mario is found in a clearing and taken to a nearby inn. During his dream, he gets a message from Eldstar, the Elder of the Star Spirits, asking him to make his way to Shooting Star Summit so that they can better explain the situation to him and how he could stop Bowser. Mario then awakens, and leaves the inn to see that he was rescued by a family of friendly Goombas. As Mario tries to leave the village, Kammy Koopa appears and blocks the only exit with a giant block. Gee, I wonder what we should do… We should just jump over it. Mario isn’t the ex-Jumpman for nothing! Or even better: Crawl around it carefully. That’s doable, right?

Are you sure your main occupation
doesn't actually start with a B, Kammy?

Hammer it will be, because I don't have a
belt on me at the moment.

Nope! To leave, Mario must fetch a hammer from the Goomba family’s grandpa. Unfortunately, he’s far down the cliff, where he fell while repairing the family home’s back patio. The patio fell with him. So we find the hammer, but surprise! As Mario tries to leave back to the village with Goompa, he runs into Jr. Troopa, a little bully of a Koopa still in his baby turtle eggshell. Like that makes him look threatening or something. Get out of my way, you little shit.

After getting rid of Jr. Troopa, Mario comes back to the village, hammer in hand. He also hears that Goombario, one Goomba of the village, has been practicing to be a hero – and decides to tag along on what seems to be a big adventure! Great, I gotta take care of a Goomba kid now… Okay, fair, he’s actually a capable combatant with his Headbonk attack, and his Tattle ability gives information on places visited and enemies encountered, so he can be pretty useful.

Buddies with a Goomba. It'll never not
feel weird for Mario the stomp champion.

An aside on Paper Mario mechanics

Eventually, you get plenty of options to adapt
against any possibility.

In this game, Mario can choose among 8 party members that he gains throughout the story; he can only have one by his side, in the overworld or in battle. In both instances, they’re useful: On top of having attacks during fights (some of which can inflict status effects), they also have uses during exploration, to open paths or to find new stuff. Once you get a new party member, you can guarantee that their ability will be needed very soon to progress.

Another awesome element is that you can look for 16 Super Blocks hidden around that world, and each block gives you the option to upgrade one party member, which can be done twice for each. The first attack known by each of them requires no Flower Points to use (Flower Points, or FP, are Mario’s equivalent to magic points or a mana bar), but attacks gained with upgrades do. Also of note is that only Mario has an HP bar, meaning that if he loses, the entire team loses. However, while uncommon, it is possible for his allies to be attacked, in which case they’ll be KO’d for a few turns, meaning Mario will be alone to defend himself.

Even more options to face any eventuality.

We also learn about Badges, which I discussed earlier, but I’ll give more details here. Badges give Mario some perks either in the world or in battle; some can be new special moves (such as a more powerful stomp) or give a battle advantage (like making enemies miss at random when Mario’s Heart Points, or HP, are down to 5 or lower). Each badge requires Badge Points (BP) to equip, a value that can be increased whenever Mario goes up a level, which allows him to equip better badges over time. Combat moves that are gained through badges require Flower Points.

Paper Mario: A game in which getting 31 EXP
points is considered a lot.

Lastly, EXP here has been replaced by Star Points, or SP. That’s a lot of points to keep track of, huh? Mario levels up at each 100 Star Points collected, and upon leveling up, you can choose to increase either Mario’s HP, FP or BP. Mario’s growth stops at Level 27. Also, as he gets stronger, weaker enemies start giving out less SP, to the point where most enemies stop giving out SP upon defeat once Mario has a level high enough. Note that Mario's attack and defense don't increase as you level up; they increase through items found throughout the adventure.

In short: A number of clever twists on the usual RPG fare, although it does have a lot of similarities with what’s been done before, some of which it attempts to hide under new names.

Prologue (continued)

That's one big Goomba.
I'll need my big stompy boots.

On the road back to Toad Town, Mario and Goombario run into a blue Goomba and a red Goomba who don’t pose much of a threat. They flee upon defeat, going to a miniature castle belonging to the Goomba King. A nice first proper boss battle here. Following this, the party arrives at Toad Town and can see what remains of the field where Peach’s Castle once stood proud. Shooting Star Summit is only a stone’s throw from the town, so Mario climbs the mountain and gets to talk with the Spirits, who only have a little bit of time to explain their situation: As they are powerful enough together to weaken the Star Rod, Bowser made sure to capture and scatter them across the land. Their power must be restored before they can do anything to help. The transmission ends before they can say any more.

"I'm gonna grant wishes! ...someday."

One element I like about this game is that it also follows Princess Peach’s side of the story. In fact, we cut to her as she’s visited by her captors, whom she refuses to address with anything but spite. Upon wishing for help, she’s visited by a kid star named Twink, whose wish-granting abilities are still too limited to do anything in that field. Therefore, she instead asks Twink to deliver a present, the Lucky Star, to Mario, along with a message that she’s fine. The star child goes and does that.

The Lucky Star is a pendant that allows Mario and his allies to perform action commands, meaning that with good timing they can inflict more damage with an attack. Similar mechanics were seen in Super Mario RPG. Since we only get action commands now, it makes the prologue surprisingly slow and bland, with little intensity to the battles since you cannot turn the tides of turn-based combat through skill. All you could do so far was play your turn and let things play out. There was no way to inflict more damage through a single attack, or save an HP of health, with a well-timed button press. Action commands are a very welcome addition.

Chapter 1: Storming the Koopa Bros.’ Fortress

Mario needs to head west, but four bizarre, dark Toads are blocking the way. The plumber seeks help with Merlon, the local wizard (who also can help guide our hero, and the player, if they don’t know where to go next), and the wizard dispels the disguises and reveals the Koopa Bros. These Teenage Fighter Ninja Koopas used to be cool, but they became arrogant and nasty after joining Bowser’s forces. Mario gives chase, but eventually runs into a chasm with no visible bridge. Well… there’s a switch to make one appear, but it’s on the other side.

Mario the hero, recovering Koopa shells
one at a time.

Those Fuzzies aren't gonna last long.

Mario thus makes a detour to Koopa Village, which he finds invaded by Fuzzies, who stole the shells of the village’s Koopa population. This includes the blue shell of Kooper, a (frankly adorable) Koopa with a nice bandana around his neck. Mario deals with the Fuzzies and returns everyone’s shells, and in thanks Kooper decides to join Mario on the adventure. When he’s the “equipped” ally, Kooper in his shell form can be whacked by Mario's hammer to strike targets, even ones on the other side of pits. Also your first ally to have a move that hits multiple opponents (in this case, ground enemies).

Sure enough, Kooper’s ability lets Mario hit the switch and summon the bridge to the Koopa Bros.’ fortress. Koopa Village was home to two Bob-Ombs that fled from the fortress when the Bros. became nasty after their promotion, and this excursion gives credence to the bombs’ claims. The four idiots even imprisoned a couple of Bob-Ombs! It’s among them that Mario meets Bombette, a pink Bob-Omb who can explode on command, and she joins the team after they free her from the fortress prison, using her ability to blast a wall open.

...You're a bomb. All you do is asplode.
You didn't think to asplode??!?

These Koopas ought to go back to eating pizza.

Yet again, the new team member’s ability allows them to break through (heh) and make their way around, reaching areas that were inaccessible previously. Mario and Co. eventually confront the Koopa Bros., whose first idea is to hide in a fake Bowser to scare the heroes. That one gets destroyed, so they resort to fighting the plumber head-on instead. Which, of course, leads to them losing. This battle, by the way, is a lot of fun, and it encourages the player to use everything they’ve collected so far to take out the four overconfident Koopas. This allows the team to free Eldstar, the first Star Spirit, who now lends his power to them.

Metal Gear Princess?

From this point on, Mario can access one more option during battle: Star Powers. Gained from the Star Spirits rescued, those consume Star Points, represented by a gauge on the battle HUD that fills a bit on each turn, and which Mario can fill more using an ability called Focus. Eldstar’s ability is Refresh, which replenishes Mario’s HP and FP by 5.

The scene with Peach that follows this is the first time she’s properly playable in this game. In an attempt to escape, Peach looks for a secret passageway. She finds one and escapes with Twink, and finds herself in a room where Bowser keeps his diary. Upon reading it, she learns that the second Star Spirit is hidden in Dry Dry Desert. That’s when Bowser shows up, and promptly gets her confined to her room again. Peach then tells Twink to relay the message to Mario…

Alright, I think I can stop this here. This will be continued in Part 2.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past

I bought that Link costume something like 3-4 years ago, telling myself I'd get to use it eventually for the blog... Took long enough, but that's FINALLY been done!

I was originally hoping to have this game as my anniversary review this year. Although I like The Legend of Zelda, I feel like I don’t get to talk about the franchise often enough. The third entry in the franchise, subtitled A Link to the Past, was released on April 13th, 1992, in America. The SNES game solidified many of the concepts that were present in the first two, and set the stage for all the ones that would come after. 

I eventually decided against reviewing this game for an anniversary, in part because I like said anniversary reviews to be long and detailed, and I need to have a lot to say. I didn’t have the time for such a thing this year. Also, I’ve grown to notice that it’s one of the better-known entries in the series. It’s not as huge as TLoZ: Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask or Breath of the Wild, but I’d still classify it among the Top 5. I’ve seen a large community of people playing it to this day, piling on the self-imposed challenges and item randomizers. There are people out there who know this game better than I know my own home, and I’ve never moved in 28 years. So I don't have several parts' worth of things to say about it.

The big reason why I wanted to cover it, however, is that it’s one of the rare few games to have followed me in some form throughout my life. My cousins passed it down to me, in a package that included their SNES console and the rest of their collection, when I was about 10; I borrowed a copy from a friend to play on my Game Boy Advance SP; and I purchased it on the Wii Shop Channel too. I have a great sense of nostalgia for this one.

Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars (Part 5)

Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

Talking down Bowser with simple logic. That, my friends,
is why Geno is awesome.

Time to finish this! In Part 4, Mario, Mallow, Geno, Peach and Bowser defeated Exor the sword, only to get sucked into its mouth and end up in the original world the Smithy Gang came from: A factory. Geno confirms that this is the Smithy Gang’s world of origin, a cold, dead place where only machines and monsters could exist. We see outside the factory, and yeah, it’s nothing but darkness and fog. Of course, now that Bowser got his castle back, he wants to leave the group, but Geno is quick to remind him that more weapon-based monsters will come out of Exor as long as the Smithy Gang isn’t truly defeated. Bowser reluctantly agrees to help the team until the end.

Even though the factory itself is a world of machines, the outside is inhabited by ghosts. Weird combination, but I suppose it just helps to show how alien and bizarre this world is. Don't you just hate it when ghosts show up out of nowhere, without any real reason, just to fill up space?

BRICK JOKE!

DAMMIT!

Ah yes, the bells can attack too.
They'll... ring you out!

Even weirder are the bosses met here. Oh yes, if you wanted gimmicks, you’re going to get gimmicks. A lot of gimmicky bosses. First is Count Down, a large clock that unleashes different attacks based on which hour it displays. However, it’s only a tool for the Ding-A-Lings, the two little bells on top of it, which can also attack. As a boss, it’s a very creative idea. Tough, but not impossible. Although, yes, it’s creative, but there is no reason for this thing being battled! Unless… Unless it’s the timekeeper of the factory’s activities, and its demise will make everything go awry? Nobody’s on time anymore, schedules get messed up, spears and guns living together in the same houses! Gun-dogs and knife-cats living together! Anarchy!

…Sometimes my interpretations get weird. And yet, there’s some sense in there.

After Count Down, we meet greyscale versions of past Smithy Gang enemies and bosses. It appears that Smithy has started mass-producing his creatures. There’s only one problem; in most cases, the Machine Made copies are weaker than the originals. Of course! Make minions en masse and their might may not match the major models! Er… That alliteration fell apart at the end. There are still colorful enemies around here though, like hammer monsters and, for some reason, more ghosts. The major Smithy Gang members are now fought in Machine Made versions, like the Axem Rangers (pitiful when they’re brought down to the ranks of enemies), Bowyer (who can still disable your buttons), Yaridovich can still split himself…

Just wait till you see their snakes.

Speaking of weird, unexpected bosses that don’t seem to fit the setting too well… we run into Cloaker and Domino, two robots who take inspiration from… Arabian Nights? One has a sabre and is more physical, one has a veil and uses more special attacks. It’s so weird. And when one of them is defeated, the other climbs on their pet, the Earth Link or Mad Adder (both giant robot-like snakes), and the battle continues. These guys, I just can’t justify. No clue why they’re a part of the Factory, they barely follow the weapon theme of the Smithy Gang!

But we’re coming close to the end now. We’re getting into the final hallway, in which we battle a factory clerk… who looks like a chibi version of Shovel Knight for some reason. Maybe the developers of Shovel Knight took inspiration there? …Probably not.  We find a Toad who has managed to run all the way through the factory to get to us and sell items before the final battles. Let me remind you that we’re in a factory infested with enemies that respawn at will, located in an alternate dimension, accessible only through the mouth of a giant sword planted into the fortress of the Mario franchise’s most recurring villain. If that Toad managed to reach this place by himself, then that is one badass Toad.

This Toad deserves his own game!
Unless he became Captain Toad?

Three bosses that are basically the same, and some that add finally some
new stuff to the table. Eh...?

Then, we battle, in quick succession, the factory's manager, the director, and the chief. Who’s next, the factory financier? The chain production overseer? The coffee-refilling intern? Well, at least the chief is different from the others… he’s helped in battle by a large machine named Gunyolk. Although that monster is actually the living lava inside of it… However, beating those doesn’t stop the production of machine mooks, so I guess we’ll have to talk with the owner of this place. Geno is reserved but happy at the thought of the seventh Star Piece being soon theirs, but knows that this means he’ll soon no longer have a reason to stay with his friends.

Come on Geno. You followed us all the way to here.
You know how it goes. This is not gonna happen unless
we battle Smithy. And this will be epic.

Mario and Co. infiltrate the final room and meet Smithy, who looks like… well… an evil, hammer-wielding, robotic Santa Claus. I mean, it’s a nice contrast with the main hero to have the final villain be associated with a particular job, wield a hammer, sport facial hair… But much like most bosses in the factory, Smithy comes out a bit out of nowhere, especially for a final villain, with no backstory or character exploration; Hell, we didn’t even know what he looked like. We only knew there was a Smithy because the enemies were called the Smithy Gang! And since the sword Exor had not been named until the battle against it, we could have reasonably assumed that it was Smithy. That’s my big issue with the game’s plot, really, how the final parts have so much padding, and yet have so little in the way of explaining the last villains, including the friggin’ final boss.

Bis boss versus final boss. Sadly Bowser alone is not able
to match Smithy. Good thing he's in a strong team!

Thankfully, while we still know little of Smithy’s backstory, we get to see a lot of his personality. He’s a terrible boss to his minions, which makes sense since he can rebuild them at will. He is callous, nasty, and has a bad case of misplaced pride. He wants to create a world of weapons, which is all the motivation we ever get. Oh, and being a Final Fantasy-like boss, he has immense power and an insane amount of Hit Points. Well, his first form isn’t so bad… 2,000 HP, some strong attacks… Would be easy, if there wasn’t that damn Smelter in the room, the thing that spits out a kind of magma goop that Smithy reforms into enemies with his hammer. The strategy is pretty simple; destroy the Smelter first. Good luck doing that, though, since Smithy can still attack in the meantime.

So Smithy is beaten. Well, that wasn’t so bad, was it? Kinda simple, even. Angered by his defeat, Smithy thrashes about, despite the warnings of his minions… and falls through the ground, dragging the heroes down with him. And so we see Smithy’s true form…

…Can he go back to wearing that beard? He looked cooler that way. And where are we? In a furnace? Is this the decapitated head of another Smithy in the background? Holy shit!

Tank head? Yeah, that still goes under the cannons rule.
Cannons are fine, but guns are a no-no.

Speaking of, final battle means an extra-tough boss and the best gimmick yet. Smithy has 8,000 HP and five different heads, and can reshape himself at will. Each head has its own stats and moves – the tank head is attack-focused, the wizard head uses a lot of special moves but has horrible defenses, the mask head is weak in attack but strong against physical moves, and the treasure chest head has good defenses and looooooves to inflict status ailments. Since Smithy gives himself a makeover every turn or two, you can never tell what he’s going to do next. And oh yeah, his body can attack too, though with a measly 1,000 HP it’s much easier to incapacitate – not that it makes a difference since it can just come back to full health a few turns after it’s been defeated, and attack again.

The first time I played through Super Mario RPG, it was on an emulator. I know, I’m not proud. A lack of preparations and planning led to the fight lasting 40 minutes. Most epic final battle I had ever been through. Someone who knows what they’re doing will probably go through it in 20 minutes, maybe 10 even if the team is at a high level. Which is on par with most final RPG boss fights, really. Especially as far as Square-Enix is concerned. A time comes where I can’t say much else than “Tough fight!”, I mean, what else is there to add? Yeah, it’s the final boss, but it’s not like I can keep rambling about that.

It's time for goodbyes, I think.
If we can see each other again, if that ever happens.

So Smithy is, at last, defeated. He explodes, and the Star Piece that he had made a part of himself is freed, allowing Mario to get it. Our quest is over, at last. The seven Star Pieces flash around Geno and with his magic, he sends them to their rightful place in the Star Road, bringing back the granting of wishes upon the Mushroom Kingdom. And so, the Star Spirit inhabiting the Geno doll leaves, to go back to the Star Road. Farewell Geno, or ♡♪!?, whatever your real name is. We won’t forget you. I mean… we literally won’t, you’re like one of the most beloved character of the Mario franchise, ever, with fans clamoring for your return in newer games of the franchise, and maybe also as an actual battler in Smash. Why can we get Cloud and we don’t even get Geno? For shame!

Runaway groom! Quick, catch him before he flees
on his toy train!

Next we see Mario, Mallow, Peach and Bowser on the cliff, looking towards Bowser’s Keep, and seeing Exor disintegrating into nothingness. With the threat of the Smithy Gang obliterated, we see what happens now around the Mushroom Kingdom. Mallow takes his rightful place as Prince of Nimbus Land. Bowser is busy repairing his castle, something that he would get used to doing in the future as more and more encounters with Mario or the new RPG villain would destroy his lair, in part or in totality. Jonathan Jones the shark pirate looks at the sea. Croco goes to Yo’Ster Isle, loses a race, but befriends Boshi the Yoshi wearing the silly sunglasses. Frogfucius attends a concert held by Toadofsky, whom I never mentioned until now because dammit, I couldn’t explain every single darn NPC and mini-game! Valentina fell on Booster’s Tower and he tries to marry her, Dodo directs the ceremony (somehow), but Booster chickens out midway into the wedding. I suppose he found out there was no cake this time around. Or maybe he’s too childish for the wedding night. The game then ends on a final shot of Mario, Peach and a few more, waving at the player with a big “Thank you” above them.

The end? Well… there’s also the credits, showing a parade around the Mushroom Kingdom. Led by Luigi – le gasp! He IS in the game after all! – and a few music-playing Toads, the parade presents the many actors of this story on a final hurrah, a reminder of good memories of the various adventures the heroes had. Including… Oh crap, it’s the Smithy Gang! They’re still alive! The Kingdom is doomed again!

Pictured: Enemies that should be dead.
Also pictured: The supervisor responsible for the
various translation goofs... who has still done a great
job in spite of the errors.

…Nah, the game is over. We’re fine. I hope. It ends with Mario and Peach on a shining star-shaped parade car as we get a final “The End” in the skies.

Good! I mean, yes, the game is good, but we’re not on my final words just yet. What else is there to say? Well, the game may have been beaten, but obviously you cannot save after Smithy’s defeat, so it will always be possible to go back to the Factory to beat him up. This also means that you can visit the Mushroom Kingdom at your leisure to find every little secret. And BOY are there many secrets in this game! I already covered the most famous ones – the Three Musty Fears, Jinx, Culex… but there’s more! There’s a ton of content that will pass by right under the eyes of anyone who plays this game only to see the end. Here, have a longer list of everything you can look for.

-Try to find all the hidden treasure chests around the Mushroom Kingdom;

-In Seaside Town, Frogfucius’ apprentice, gone to explore the world, will sell to you five one-of-a-kind items. They all require Frog Coins, a currency different from regular coins that can be found in treasure chests and during mini-games. Finding all of the world’s Frog Coins is a side-quest all to itself.

Casino, huh?

-After fighting Knife Guy and Grate Guy in Booster Tower, you can go out and look for Grate Guy’s Casino, which is very hard to find. In there you can play a number of luck-based games, with big rewards if you actually beat them. Needless to say, my own terrible luck has convinced me never to look for that place. Blackjack, slot machine, “Look the other way”… There are good items as rewards, but damn, too much luck is required there.

-Beating the race mini-game on Yo’ster Isle. This nets you an item allowing you to call Yoshi in battle, to eat enemies.

-Finding every best piece of equipment can be a pain, as many of them are either very well-hidden, or tucked at the end of a series of complicated actions and side-quests.

-In Tadpole Pond, we have Toadofsky, who will ask you to create music by jumping on tadpoles on the water area just before him. Hm… sounds familiar? I think Matthew Taranto took inspiration from that for his own game, Tadpole Treble.

And you do that here?
In your robot suit?
Huh.

Not a side-quest per se, but you can see shout-outs to other Nintendo franchises if you know where to look. Link and Samus can be seen resting at different inns (so is it canon that these two may have been vacationing in the Mushroom Kingdom?), and another place has an Arwing and two F-Zero vehicles as toys on a shelf. There are various other secrets like this, mostly when it comes to references and nods to the Mario universe as it existed back in 1996, barely 11 years after the first Super Mario Bros. (16 if you prefer to think that the franchise began with Donkey Kong).

It’s time for my final words, but first… a breakaway to explain this game’s legacy. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has two distinct honors: The first Mario game made by Nintendo in partnership with Square-Enix (which is why none of the characters created for this game have appeared anywhere else, save for a cameo by Geno and an outfit in Smash 4). It’s also the first Mario RPG, which is a bigger deal than you’d think, since Nintendo’s next home console would see Mario adding role-playing games as a permanent addition to his spin-offs, with Paper Mario, and later on, the Mario & Luigi series debuting on Nintendo’s Game Boy Advance. Super Mario RPG is a precursor to both, as well as the only RPG that isn’t part of either of these two sub-series. While they cannot be used in Mario games due to copyright belonging to Square-Enix, various characters from this very game have seen substitutes created later down the line, in a way to circumvent the copyright limitation. As an example, the Chancellor of the Mushroom Kingdom can be seen as a prototype of what would become Toadsworth. It also introduced timed hits, which would become a staple of the systems in later Mario RPGs, especially in the Mario & Luigi series.

"We didn't own the left one, so we made the right one.
Take that, copyright!"
To be honest, I do prefer Toadsworth.

Nonono, you joined the good guys. Welcome to the right
side, Bowser. Don't worry, you're gonna see  life from that
side a couple more times in the future.
Sometimes without even noticing.

We also owe to this game many personality traits of the main stars that we couldn’t see before (as most Mario games thus far had minimal storytelling and little chance of showcasing the characters’ quirks). Bowser being an egomaniacal jerk who thinks of himself as better than everyone else is something that may not have started in Super Mario RPG, but it definitely cemented that trait. It also made him a good boss towards his underlings, like a father to his men, something that would pop up time and time again in later games. Princess Peach being able to jump into action and kick as much ass as her fellows is also something that began here. She still has had only one game to herself, but she’s been joining the action more and more often lately. More of her personality traits also debuted in this game.

More than that, though, Super Mario RPG brought something unique to the franchise and the RPGs that would follow: The tone. Legend of the Seven Stars is heavy on jokes about the Mario franchise, making a mockery of its sillier elements, and pointing out the trends and common tropes of the setting. When Peach is kidnapped by Bowser, the Toads just go “Oh? Again? Alright then”, and go on with their lives. Everybody relies on Mario to get anything done, sometimes to ridiculous lengths. The interactions between the main characters are full of comedy. There is some deconstruction of the general elements of the franchise, and a lot of “lampshade hanging” as well (sorry, I can only explain this in TVTropes terms, go check the page I linked, you’ll see what I mean). This is omnipresent in later Mario RPGs, and even in some of the other genres the series has delved into… and it all pretty much started in Super Mario RPG; Legend of the Seven Stars.

Ooooh, meta!

So, is this a great game? Yes! It’s really, really great! I mean, it’s got flaws here and there, but it’s definitely great. It’s a grand story featuring tons of side-quests, and compelling, appealing characters and storylines. Oh, and also, it’s funny as Hell. The graphics “look” like 3D, and the game plays like 3D what with Mario being able to go in all four directions on any given map, but the sprites are actually 2D, drawn with inspiration from actual 3D models that the system would not have been able to use. The illusion is breathtaking, isn’t it? You can barely tell that this is “2.5D”! And the music. God, the music. To this day, it’s still hailed as some of the best tracks brought to the series! The “Forest Maze” track is still beloved today. Hell, there are TWO rap remixes of it with accompanying Flash videos, made by the same guy!

On top of all the NPCs, the game also brought to us many memorable bosses, and most of them are memorable specifically because they made use of gimmicks that are seldom-seen in other RPG franchises. Locking commands? Cloning the party by eating them? Those are rare things. And of course, let’s not forget that the game’s bestiary comprises over 200 different opponents, ranging from normal Mario enemies to odd bosses and mini-bosses, and the weirdest ideas for enemies you can think of (A carrot? And is that an elephant skeleton… with a bone trunk? Living puppets? Scepters? These weird shell-shaped things?). The Smithy Gang itself is memorable, as a team of robots based on weapons is a concept I had never seen before – although as the main villains of the story, some of them severely lack characterization and backstory, Smithy being the worst example.

Speaking of the story, while I do enjoy it I will admit that the padding of it is rather… blatant. A lot of portions seem to be there only to pad out the length of the story, with little connection to the plot. It’s especially true of a lot of bosses in the game, in the Factory in particular. And the game just drags on between the fifth Star Piece and the seventh, with some padding more obvious in places (being forced to complete 4 of 6 courses in Bowser’s Keep, as an example).

Yeah... I won't soon forget how forced that was.

The other main problem with the game is how, when it comes to items, equipment and accessories, very little is explained. Each object has room only for a small description, and the actual effects of many items are not described. It becomes a problem with some of the more special equipment, like the Lazy Shell that lowers attack but increases defense; the Quartz Charm, which boosts the attack and defense by 50%.... There are many other examples of items with odd effects, but the game doesn't tell you enough info. That’s an issue. It’s especially bad when it involves the equipment gained after completing complex tasks, and you have no idea of the effects of the reward you just obtained for your troubles.

Click the image to enlarge and see my two problems, summed
up here: The "Description is all we ever see of the item in the
game, very few explanation. Then, bad translation: "Noknok
Shell".

Oh, and of course, I can also talk about the translation again. It’s clear that Ted Woolsey and his team tried their best to bring the game to the English language, but they definitely had some issues, especially when it came to naming enemies and attacks. Some regular enemies of the Mario franchise are given names that don’t make sense (Paratroopas aren’t named Paratroopas, as an example), while other enemies keep a name close to the original Japanese one – when some other names could have worked better. Similarly the names of some of the attacks don’t make much sense. Thankfully, that’s a minor issue compared to everything else. Also, epic fail: They named regular Boos “The Big Boo”. Whoopsie.

Once again: Translation error.

Despite all this, yeah: Good game! A few flaws here and there, but great stuff overall. Go play it. That’s not an order, but it’s a very, very strong recommendation.

And so this closes the fourth anniversary review on Planned All Along! Sorry I had to take a hiatus at first, this stuff is really long to write after all. But yeah, I’m happy that it’s done, and I’m glad I could discuss this game. It’s been on my to-do list for a while.

So… I think it’s time for some Steam games now. Join me next week as I publish my next Steam Pack.